Refrigerator appliances generally include a cabinet that defines a chilled chamber for receipt of food items for storage. For example, the cabinet can define a fresh food chamber and a freezer chamber. The fresh food chamber can be maintained at a temperature greater than the freezing point of water. Conversely, the freezer chamber can be maintained at a temperature equal to or less than the freezing point of water.
Certain refrigerator appliances also include an ice maker for producing ice. The ice maker can be positioned within the appliances' freezer chamber and direct ice into an ice bucket where it can be stored within the freezer chamber. Such refrigerator appliances can also include a dispensing system for assisting a user with accessing ice produced by the refrigerator appliances' ice maker. Storing ice within a refrigerator appliance's freezer chamber can have certain drawbacks. In particular, certain refrigerator appliances maintain their freezer chambers at temperatures well below the freezing point of water. Ice stored in such conditions can become cloudy and/or hard relative to ice stored at warmer temperatures. Consumers can find such cloudy and/or hard ice undesirable.
As such, a current trend that is increasing in popularity is the desire for “nugget”, or chewable, ice. Such ice is typically stored at a relatively higher than normal temperature such as above 32 degrees Fahrenheit in some cases. For example, such ice may be formed and stored generally within the fresh food chamber, such as in an ice box defined in the door for accessing the fresh food chamber.
One issue with known ice makers, and in particular ice makers that make nugget ice, is clogging. In some cases, clogging is simply caused by excess ice being generated which over fills the container holding the generated ice. In other cases, and particularly when nugget ice is being generated, clogging is caused by ice freezing to components of the ice maker assembly, such as to the chute guiding the ice from the ice maker to the container. Clogging can cause ice to back up in the ice maker assembly, which can in turn cause damage to or destruction of components of the ice maker assembly.
Some known refrigerator appliances and ice maker assemblies utilize sensors mounted in the ice containers to address clogging issues. These sensors can detect ice levels within the containers. However, these sensors cannot detect ice that is frozen in the chute.
Accordingly, improved refrigerator appliances and ice maker assemblies are desired in the art. In particular, refrigerator appliances and ice maker assemblies with improved apparatus for detecting ice levels and ice clogging issue would be advantageous.